ANCIENT BEGINNINGS OF THE TECHNIQUE OF SAHAJA YOGA, AS EXPLAINED BY SHRI MATAJI
Question: He would like to know what was the exact beginning of this technique, this practice?

Shri Mataji: Oh, it’s very ancient, thousands of years old. We had three kinds of movements in India, about our research. First one was that people wanted to master the matter. So they used all kinds of mantras and all kinds of, you can call, worships, by which they could master the right side, the five elements. And that’s how they got it – science. But that’s very dry and they felt there was no peace and joy in that pursuit. So, they started another movement, to the left hand side, of emotional devotion to God. But in the center there was a very secret group, called as Naths, who tried the method of Self Realization. But it was so accepted that one master will have only one disciple, till the twelfth century. In the twelfth century one saint, one of them, whose brother was his master – his name was Santa Gyaneshwara. He told him that “We have to talk about this knowledge to the whole world and you must allow me to break this tradition.”

So in his book that he wrote a treatise of Gita, Gyaneshwari, about Gita, and another book, two books he wrote he talked about this knowledge. Specially in Gyaneshwari in the sixth chapter. But the priests said that “This is to be closed. We should not read the sixth chapter,” the priests, as usual, because they didn’t know what it was. The priests, as usual, they are all money-oriented, everywhere. So they wouldn’t allow this thing to be published or to be read. So it was kept a secret till the sixth century before Christ.

Another great master came in and who also talked about it. All that was carried on by other people like Kabira, Nanaka, all these people wrote about him. But, you see, it was not explained, so nobody understood. They didn’t really understand. In this century I decided to find out a method by which we can give en masse Realization. I had all this knowledge. I was born with it. But I didn’t want to talk about it because it would be another Bible and people would just read it, and read it and read it. So wanted to put it to a practical, pragmatic happening. And I discovered on the fifth May 1970, the method, to do it. Since then thousands of them have got Realization.

After Realization, this subtle knowledge becomes very easy to understand and to master it. Like one enlightened candle can enlighten many other candles. That’s how it started spreading. It’s a living process of evolution. You cannot pay for it, you cannot put in effort, it just works automatically. It is spontaneous, that’s Sahaj. Sahaj means spontaneous. It cannot have any pretensions because it’s the truth. Because the truth is you are the Spirit, the truth is there is this all-pervading Power.
–Press Conference. Bucharest (Romania), 17 October 1990.